[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
We're okay, Jeremy said. We can manage on our own for a little while, anyway.
I want to see how much we can sell before Dad gets here again. There you go,
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Michael told him. Show him what you can do by
The message stopped there. Jeremy frowned, waiting for Michael to go on. But
only the incomplete sentence stared at him. After half a minute or so, new
words formed on the screen: TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME
TIMELINE.
What's that supposed to mean? Jeremy asked. The message program was still
running, so those words went up on the monitor, too. You there, Michael? That
appeared, too. What didn't appear was an answer from Michael Fujikawa.
Muttering, Jeremy ordered the computer to send the message. He got the same
error report as before: TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME
TIMELINE.
But I'm not even trying to send to the home timeline, Jeremy protested. He
really did swear when he saw those words go up on the screen. Then a chill ran
through him. He wasn't trying to send to the home timeline, but everything
went through it. He called up the address code for the Crosstime Traffic
office in Moigrad. That was the home timeline's counterpart of this place. Is
everything all right there? he asked, and told the laptop to send.
TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME TIMELINE.
That wasn't good at all not even slightly. Something had gone wrong somewhere
between here and the world where he'd been born.
He tried Michael one more time, and got the same error message. Really scared
now, he left fled the basement. The secret door closed behind him.
Amanda was not someone who gave in to panic. She was someone who always tried
to look on the bright side of things. That was one reason her brother
sometimes drove her crazy. Of course, Jeremy had woken her out of a sound
sleep to tell her about the error message. She was not at her best yawning in
the middle of the night.
She went down to the basement to try to send messages to the home timeline
herself. When she found she couldn't, either, she went back to her bedroom.
It'll be fine in the morning, she said.
How do you know that? Jeremy demanded.
Because nothing's ever as awful when the sun comes out as it is at three in
the morning, or whatever time it is now, Amanda answered. Then she shut the
door in his face.
The computer still wouldn't send messages when she got up in the morning. That
wasn't good news. It was, in fact, very bad news. With the sun shining down
brightly on the courtyard, though, it didn't seem so bad.
Before long, Amanda was too busy to worry about it anyway. She and her mother
had had all they could do to keep the house in some kind of order and to keep
everybody fed without help from servants or slaves. Now she had to do it
without Mom around. It was more work than one human being could do.
She tried to get Jeremy to help. He didn't want to. That made her lose her
temper. You listen to me, Jeremy, she snapped. If you don't do what needs
doing, I'll tell Dad when he gets back here. Then you'll catch it. And you
know what else? You'll deserve it, too.
He helped. He was surly about it. He helped less than he would have if he'd
known what he was doing. Sometimes just having an extra pair of hands and an
extra pair of eyes made a difference, though.
Breaking off from the housework to deal with customers every once in a while
didn't help, either. The one good thing about that was that nobody asked them,
Where are your mother and father? The locals probably thought they would get
better deals from the younger people in the family. They were wrong, but it
kept them from being too curious.
Two days passed. Three days. Four. Five. The computer kept giving the same
error report whenever Amanda and Jeremy tried to send a message. No message
from any of the other alternates or the home timeline came in.
And Dad didn't come back to Polisso.
At first, Amanda wondered whether that was because something had gone wrong
with Mom. No way to know for sure, not when the message system was down. As
one day followed another, though, she began to realize that probably wasn't
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the problem.
I think something's wrong with the transposition chamber, she said to Jeremy
at supper the sixth night.
When she put it that way, it didn't sound so bad. If she'd said, I'm afraid
we're stuck here forever, it would have seemed much worse. But it would have
meant the same thing.
Her brother was sucking marrow out of a lamb shank. Amanda thought that took
realism too far, but Jeremy really did like marrow. Air and marrow going
through the center of the bone made a gross noise. He smacked his lips.
You may be right, he said, scratching his chin. He was growing the scraggly
beginnings of a beard. Razors here, even the straight razors the traders sold,
were nothing but long, slim knives. No neat blades in plastic safety housings.
You could do yourself some serious damage if you weren't careful. From what he
said, the beard itched coming in.
Maybe we ought to go out to the chamber outside of town, Amanda said.
We can if you want to, Jeremy said. I don't think it'll do much good, though.
Why not?
Because if that one were working, Dad would have come through it by now, along
with technicians to fix whatever's wrong with this one.
Oh. Amanda winced. That made more sense than she wished it did. She tried to
stay optimistic. We ought to check anyway.
All right. I'll go tomorrow, Jeremy said.
Amanda wished he didn't make sense there, too, but he did. Anyone on the road
was much less likely to give a large young man trouble than a young woman.
That was unfortunate, which didn't make it any less true. She said, What could
make both transposition chambers stop working at the same time?
I don't know, her brother answered bleakly. I've been chewing on that for
three or four days now, and I haven't got any sure answers.
Three or four days? That was a day or two longer than Amanda had been
worrying. Jeremy hadn't let on how worried he was till now. Amanda said, What
are some of the things you've thought of?
Maybe there was an earthquake in the home timeline. That could have been true.
Quakes happened randomly across timelines. Maybe the transposition operators
are out on strike. That was a joke; the chambers could go automatically 99.999
(and probably several more nines after that) percent of the time. Jeremy went
on: Maybe the operators are still filling out Agrippan Roman forms. That was a
joke, too sort of.
What are we going to do if a chamber... doesn't show up for a while? Amanda
asked.
The best we can, her brother answered. What else can we do?
Nothing, she said unhappily.
When people do come back for us, we'll be the richest pair in Polisso, Jeremy
said.
That sounds good, Amanda said. Her brother grinned at her. She knew he was
trying to keep up her spirits along with his own, and liked him for it. After
a second, she stuck a finger in the air the sign she'd thought of something.
From now on, we'd better take money for everything we sell.
How come? Jeremy asked. Then he looked foolish. Oh.
Yeah, Amanda said. What would we do with all that grain if we couldn't ship it
back to the home timeline? It'd start coming out of our ears.
Uh-huh. Jeremy nodded. Then when things do get straightened out again, that'll [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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We're okay, Jeremy said. We can manage on our own for a little while, anyway.
I want to see how much we can sell before Dad gets here again. There you go,
Page 35
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Michael told him. Show him what you can do by
The message stopped there. Jeremy frowned, waiting for Michael to go on. But
only the incomplete sentence stared at him. After half a minute or so, new
words formed on the screen: TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME
TIMELINE.
What's that supposed to mean? Jeremy asked. The message program was still
running, so those words went up on the monitor, too. You there, Michael? That
appeared, too. What didn't appear was an answer from Michael Fujikawa.
Muttering, Jeremy ordered the computer to send the message. He got the same
error report as before: TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME
TIMELINE.
But I'm not even trying to send to the home timeline, Jeremy protested. He
really did swear when he saw those words go up on the screen. Then a chill ran
through him. He wasn't trying to send to the home timeline, but everything
went through it. He called up the address code for the Crosstime Traffic
office in Moigrad. That was the home timeline's counterpart of this place. Is
everything all right there? he asked, and told the laptop to send.
TRANSMISSION INTERRUPTED. NO CONTACT WITH HOME TIMELINE.
That wasn't good at all not even slightly. Something had gone wrong somewhere
between here and the world where he'd been born.
He tried Michael one more time, and got the same error message. Really scared
now, he left fled the basement. The secret door closed behind him.
Amanda was not someone who gave in to panic. She was someone who always tried
to look on the bright side of things. That was one reason her brother
sometimes drove her crazy. Of course, Jeremy had woken her out of a sound
sleep to tell her about the error message. She was not at her best yawning in
the middle of the night.
She went down to the basement to try to send messages to the home timeline
herself. When she found she couldn't, either, she went back to her bedroom.
It'll be fine in the morning, she said.
How do you know that? Jeremy demanded.
Because nothing's ever as awful when the sun comes out as it is at three in
the morning, or whatever time it is now, Amanda answered. Then she shut the
door in his face.
The computer still wouldn't send messages when she got up in the morning. That
wasn't good news. It was, in fact, very bad news. With the sun shining down
brightly on the courtyard, though, it didn't seem so bad.
Before long, Amanda was too busy to worry about it anyway. She and her mother
had had all they could do to keep the house in some kind of order and to keep
everybody fed without help from servants or slaves. Now she had to do it
without Mom around. It was more work than one human being could do.
She tried to get Jeremy to help. He didn't want to. That made her lose her
temper. You listen to me, Jeremy, she snapped. If you don't do what needs
doing, I'll tell Dad when he gets back here. Then you'll catch it. And you
know what else? You'll deserve it, too.
He helped. He was surly about it. He helped less than he would have if he'd
known what he was doing. Sometimes just having an extra pair of hands and an
extra pair of eyes made a difference, though.
Breaking off from the housework to deal with customers every once in a while
didn't help, either. The one good thing about that was that nobody asked them,
Where are your mother and father? The locals probably thought they would get
better deals from the younger people in the family. They were wrong, but it
kept them from being too curious.
Two days passed. Three days. Four. Five. The computer kept giving the same
error report whenever Amanda and Jeremy tried to send a message. No message
from any of the other alternates or the home timeline came in.
And Dad didn't come back to Polisso.
At first, Amanda wondered whether that was because something had gone wrong
with Mom. No way to know for sure, not when the message system was down. As
one day followed another, though, she began to realize that probably wasn't
Page 36
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
the problem.
I think something's wrong with the transposition chamber, she said to Jeremy
at supper the sixth night.
When she put it that way, it didn't sound so bad. If she'd said, I'm afraid
we're stuck here forever, it would have seemed much worse. But it would have
meant the same thing.
Her brother was sucking marrow out of a lamb shank. Amanda thought that took
realism too far, but Jeremy really did like marrow. Air and marrow going
through the center of the bone made a gross noise. He smacked his lips.
You may be right, he said, scratching his chin. He was growing the scraggly
beginnings of a beard. Razors here, even the straight razors the traders sold,
were nothing but long, slim knives. No neat blades in plastic safety housings.
You could do yourself some serious damage if you weren't careful. From what he
said, the beard itched coming in.
Maybe we ought to go out to the chamber outside of town, Amanda said.
We can if you want to, Jeremy said. I don't think it'll do much good, though.
Why not?
Because if that one were working, Dad would have come through it by now, along
with technicians to fix whatever's wrong with this one.
Oh. Amanda winced. That made more sense than she wished it did. She tried to
stay optimistic. We ought to check anyway.
All right. I'll go tomorrow, Jeremy said.
Amanda wished he didn't make sense there, too, but he did. Anyone on the road
was much less likely to give a large young man trouble than a young woman.
That was unfortunate, which didn't make it any less true. She said, What could
make both transposition chambers stop working at the same time?
I don't know, her brother answered bleakly. I've been chewing on that for
three or four days now, and I haven't got any sure answers.
Three or four days? That was a day or two longer than Amanda had been
worrying. Jeremy hadn't let on how worried he was till now. Amanda said, What
are some of the things you've thought of?
Maybe there was an earthquake in the home timeline. That could have been true.
Quakes happened randomly across timelines. Maybe the transposition operators
are out on strike. That was a joke; the chambers could go automatically 99.999
(and probably several more nines after that) percent of the time. Jeremy went
on: Maybe the operators are still filling out Agrippan Roman forms. That was a
joke, too sort of.
What are we going to do if a chamber... doesn't show up for a while? Amanda
asked.
The best we can, her brother answered. What else can we do?
Nothing, she said unhappily.
When people do come back for us, we'll be the richest pair in Polisso, Jeremy
said.
That sounds good, Amanda said. Her brother grinned at her. She knew he was
trying to keep up her spirits along with his own, and liked him for it. After
a second, she stuck a finger in the air the sign she'd thought of something.
From now on, we'd better take money for everything we sell.
How come? Jeremy asked. Then he looked foolish. Oh.
Yeah, Amanda said. What would we do with all that grain if we couldn't ship it
back to the home timeline? It'd start coming out of our ears.
Uh-huh. Jeremy nodded. Then when things do get straightened out again, that'll [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]